The Cult in the Clearing
by MeanderingFlames
Summary: When Booth and Bones stumble upon a collection of skulls in a clearing they are led further into danger than they anticipated.
1. Chapter 1: The Grim Reaper

Annie Li stepped outside of the store, her skirt ruffling pleasantly around her knees in the spring wind. Confident in her purchases, she hitched her bag up on her shoulder and started walking. The sun was just going down, the streetlights just turned on. The street was fairly empty, while a few cars were haphazardly parked on the side. From her peripheral vision she caught someone walking, someone considerably larger than her. From this view they seemed to be walking towards her, so she started to walk a little bit faster, not daring a straight look in case they noticed she was nervous. It would be terrible if she turned out the be afraid of an old man with a cane.

Still nervous however, she kept up a pretty fast pace. It was when the figure got closer and closer that she started to half-jog, then reach into her bag for her phone. The figure still followed, not extremely close but too close for comfort. There was nobody else on the street, and the heavy thumping of the stranger's boots was nerve wracking. _Just four more blocks. Come on Annie, you can make it four more blocks. _

There was a hand on her shoulder. She screamed, but nothing came out; struggling, she elbowed her assailant, then whipped her head around. She barely got a chance to be shocked at the hooded figure that grabbed her, the one that looked exactly like the grim reaper, before she was hit over the head and everything went black.

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It's never a normal day at the Jeffersonian Institute forensics lab. Dead bodies arrive wrapped in tarps, then are displayed on a metal table in order to find out who they were, how they died, and who killed them. There's no shame at the Jeffersonian-- At least, not for the dead. The scientists have access to your love life, your sex life, your work life and your family life. They know things about you that would make you crawl into a hole forever if you knew they found out. But of course you wouldn't care either, because it would mean you were dead.

"Nigel, pass me the ten blade so I can match up the exact angle the blade entered the wound and make an analysis so we can find out what weapon killed her," Doctor Temperance Brennan said, leaning forward, her auburn hair up in a springy ponytail. The young assistant next to her jolted forward, grabbing the shiny knife and safely delivering it to his boss. Eager to please, he asked if there was anything else he could do.

"Yeah, get me and Bones some coffee, could ya?" A snide voice said as Agent Seely Booth entered, a sly grin on his face as he leaned forward on his toes, his thumbs tucked behind his "Cocky" belt.

"Booth, let Nigel be," Temperance said as she angrily stabbed a piece of raw chicken.

"Well, you can leave Nigel here to deal with this baby," Booth said, "Because _we _just got assigned to another case."

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"So Bones, what do you think?" Booth asked, the glare off his sunglasses blinding anyone within a ten mile radius.

"The head's been hollowed out in some sort of ritual," Brennan speculated, rotating the skull around in her hands. "There's a blunt trauma to the left side of the parietal bone, and scrapings along the left zygomatic suggest... cannibalism." She then stood up and placed the skull in an evidence bag. "Um, female. Low to mid twenties, most likely of Asian descent."

"Bones, what is that?" Booth asked, pointing at the ground.

Temperance Brennan looked to her left where she saw a small piece of paper on the ground. Upon picking it up, she saw a picture of the grim reaper giving a beating heart to a baby. It was a disturbing image, sending a chill down her spine. "I dunno Booth, it looks like some sort of.... trading card."

"When I was young the only cards we traded were baseball cards," Booth said. "Not these things. If I caught Parker with one of these--"

"Holy shit!" A voice exclaimed from across the small gully.

"What is it?" Booth demanded to know. He stood up out of his crouch to look across where people in white suits were scanning the area.

"We got more skulls back here!"

"How many?"

"A lot."

"How much is a lot?"

"Come see for yourself." Brennan quickly dropped the evidence back she was holding safely in the cooler and wiped herself off, then proceeded to where Booth was now standing, shaking his head.

Right in front of them was a crack in the ground surrounded by boulders, and filled inside that crack was the dull white color of bone. Empty eye sockets looked out at the forensics team, the threat of a serial killer looming over their heads.

****************************************


	2. Chapter 2: The ID

"I think we have a Charles Manson type thing going on here," Jack Hodgins speculated, his blue eyes squinting up as he thought about the kind of conspiracy it could be. "You know, one guy does the dictating, he brainwashes the people to do his bidding..." He placed down the shoe he was scraping down, sweeping the soil into a plastic container.

"Well, these people were definitely killed and eaten by different people," Brennan said, looking at her computer screen. "These scrape marks are all consistent with teeth marks, but none of them are from the same person."

"Exactly, it's a whole group of crazies working together," Hodgins stated, then shook his head as he scanned the purple skirt for traces of sediments.

A beeping sound pierced the room, and Brennan dug in her pockets to pick out her vibrating phone.

"Brennan," she answered.

"Hey, Bones. We have a positive ID on the body we found."

"Go on."

"Twenty four year old Annabelle Li. Reported missing five days ago, her roommates said she went out shopping and never came home."

"Do they know where she went shopping?" Brennan wiped a stray piece of dirty blond hair out of her eyes.

"Not yet, I'm on my way over there right now," Booth said.

"I want to come. Can I come?"

"Wouldn't leave behind my sidekick, would I? I'm parked out front."


	3. Chapter 3

Brennan and Booth stepped outside the car and slammed the doors.

"Is this is?" Booth asked, squinting and looking for a house number.

"Yes. It's 41 Magnolia drive, apartment C. It's that one."

Booth stepped over various pots full of colorful flowers that littered the small front lawn. Ugly statues of gnomes sat scattered around the pots, scowling up at the two detectives. He approached a faded pink wooden door, the paint peeling slightly; the door had a brass knocker in the shape of a porcupine, and he took hold of it and knocked three times.

The sound of someone hurrying down the stairs preceded the door being opened by a girl with Hello Kitty pajamas on and her long, silky hair up in a bun.

"Special Agent Seeley Booth and my partner, Temperance Brennan. We're here to ask you some questions about your roommate Annie?" He pulled out his badge to verify that he was indeed an FBI agent, then tucked it back into his jacket pocket.

"Um, yeah, come on in…" She said, pulling the door as far open as she could without the door smacking into the narrow stairway; the apartment was small, much too small for three people to inhabit without some serious territorial issues.

The girl gestured for them to sit down in some beat up red couches splattered with mystery stains and a strong smell of Febreze. She slipped off her bunny slippers and tossed them behind the couch before another girl walked in. The new girl was very short; If Dr. Brennan had to guess, she would say this girl was about 4'11".

"Susan, this is Agent Booth and his partner, Dr. Brennan," the girl in the Hello Kitty pjs said. "They're here to ask us about Annie."

Susan sat down next to her roommate, then sat politely and stared at her feet.

"So, when was the last time you saw Annie?" Booth started, eyeing the girls seriously.

"Friday night," the girl in the pajamas said. "Her boyfriend was coming up for the weekend and she needed something new to wear to dinner with his parents."

"She has a boyfriend?" Booth asked. "Can you tell me about him?"

"His name is Dylan Gardener," Susan said. "He goes to Syracuse but finds time every once in a while to come visit Annie."

"If he goes to Syracuse, how did she meet him?" Brennan interjected, Booth giving her a sideways glance and a slight nod.

"They met online in our sophomore year. Yvonne was telling her about this website—College Matchmaker or something like that—"

"College Cupid," the girl in the pajamas said. "I told Annie about it when her ex, Jared, broke up with her. She was kind of a wreck."

"Can you tell us about the breakup?" Booth asked politely.

"I don't really know what happened," Yvonne said while playing with a lock of her hair that had come out of her bun. "One day they're all over each other and the next she's throwing away all the pictures he drew of her and blasting breakup music like there's no tomorrow."

"What is Jared's last name?"

"Sciccelioni." Yvonne said.

"Can you think of any reason he might want to kill her?"

"Annie? No way! She was the sweetest girl ever. Everyone, including Jared, loved her. She never did anything bad, always did her work, never said a bad word about anyone."

"So you can't think of anyone with a reason for killing your friend?" Brennan asked, leaning forward a little uncomfortably in the sofa.

"Nobody. She was such a sweet girl, wouldn't hurt a fly. I can't think of anyone who would want to hurt someone like Annie."

After a moment of silence where Booth absorbed all the new information, he handed Yvonne and Susan copies of his card with a number they could reach him at. "Please call me with any new information."

"Definitely," the two girls said in unison, and Booth and Brennan left the house.

"I feel like I can finally move again," Booth said when they closed the door, stretching his arms and legs.

"I think we should find out more about Dylan and Jared," Brennan said. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the Jeffersonian.

"Cam? Yes, we think we have possible suspects. Names, Dylan Gardener and Jared Sciccelioni. S-C-C-E-L-I-O-N-I. That's right. Okay, see you soon." She closed her phone and swung the car door open, then slid into her seat with a sigh.

"Something wrong, Bones?" Booth asked as he put the car in drive.

"No, I just really want to know who could eat that many people and why."

"Well I think I know something that would cheer you up," Booth said with a smile, and flipped on the radio. The car filled with the sound of U2 singing Mysterious Ways, Booth singing along and Brennan smiling slightly as the car bumped along the roads back the Jeffersonian.


End file.
